Sunday, October 26, 2014

- 2 'Sons of Guns' reality stars arrested on cruelty to juvenile charges
More charges of forcible rape filed against 'Sons of Guns' actor
- Rotherham child abuse was raised 'at highest level'
- Evidence submitted by a former Home Office researcher
- Child abuse 'rampant' in British institutions, says Archbishop of Canterbury as he apologises for 'significant legacy of unacknowledged cases' in the Church of England
- Victims of Domestic Violence Getting Longer Prison Sentences Than Their Children's Abusers?
- Japanese Wartime Medical Orderly on Army's Role in Maintaining "Comfort Women" System

Two stars of the now canceled reality show "Sons of Guns" have been arrested on child abuse charges.
Warrants were issued Thursday by the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office for the arrest of Kristafor Ford and his wife Stephanie Hayden. According to the arrest warrant from Livingston Parish, Kristafor is accused of hitting a 9-year-old with a leather belt on the child's lower, right thigh. Reports say there was a large bruise on the child's thigh and buttocks area.

Ford was arrested Friday afternoon and charged with cruelty to a juvenile.

Stephanie Hayden was arrested Friday and charged with principal to cruelty to a juvenile because she was allegedly in the room when the incident happened....

Investigators are looking into criminal cases against Will Hayden. He is accused of raping and molesting a number of young women.

Hayden's daughter Stephanie claimed her father touched her inappropriately when she was 12 years old. He has not been charged in that case.

Rotherham child abuse was raised 'at highest level' 26 October 2014
Child abuse in Rotherham was raised "at the highest level" as far back as 2002 but officials apparently pressured a researcher to change her report.

The then chief constable Mike Hedges and the council's director of education Di Billups were among those said to have been warned by the researcher.

Documents detailing her concerns, shown to the home affairs select committee in private, have been seen by the BBC.

The researcher said it was "a tragedy" her evidence was not looked at in 2002.

In her report to the committee the researcher, initially employed by the council to investigate prostitution, said she was pressured to present her findings in a way that presented services in Rotherham in "a better light".
Scale of abuse

The researcher claimed she had "repeatedly" tried to raise concerns at senior levels "in the police force, social care and education".

The scale of child abuse in Rotherham was not revealed until this year when Professor Alexis Jay's report found at least 1400 children had been exploited....

Still concerned that children were being abused on a "daily" basis, the researcher submitted some of her evidence to Home Office evaluators.
That evidence is now missing. The researcher claimed there was a "raid" on her office the weekend after she submitted the evidence.

On coming into work, she claimed she found that all of the data relating to the Home Office work had been removed from filing cabinets. Documents on the office computer had been deleted, while others were created detailing the minutes of meetings....http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-29756051

Child abuse 'rampant' in British institutions, says Archbishop of Canterbury as he apologises for 'significant legacy of unacknowledged cases' in the Church of England

Archbishop said abuse has been 'rampant' in CoE and other institutions
Justin Welby said there is a 'significant legacy of unacknowledged cases'
Made admissions in letter to mother of three boys abused at CoE school

By Sara Malm for MailOnline

26 October 2014
Child abuse has been 'rampant' in the Church of England and other British institutions, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.

Justin Welby also said there is a 'significant legacy' of cases of child abuse within the church which have been ignored and that its failure to hold abusers to account is 'inexcusable'.

....Lindley’s story was reported in a Buzzfeed news investigation which exposed the dangerous outcomes of these “failure to protect” laws. Buzzfeed found 28 mothers and domestic violence victims in 11 states who were sent to prison for at least 10 years for failing to protect their children from abuse:

"Almost half, 13 mothers, were given 20 years or more. In one case, the mother was given a life sentence for failing to protect her son, just like the man who murdered the infant boy. In another, the sentences were effectively the same: The killer got life, and the mother got75 years, of which she must serve at least 63 years and nine months. In yet another, the mother got a longer sentence than the man who raped her son. In one more, a father fractured an infant girl’s toe, femur, and seven ribs and was sentenced to two years; for failing to intervene, the mother got 30."

Buzzfeed found that at least 29 states have failure-to-protect laws, such as injury to a child “by omission,” by “permitting child abuse” or “enabling child abuse.” Nineteen other states have laws that could also be used to prosecute parents, such as “criminal negligence in the care of a child.” Maximum prison sentences for breaking these laws vary from one year to life. And in some states, they carry the same sentence as child abuse itself.

While these laws are designed to both hold mother and father responsible for protecting their children, the law isn’t applied equally. Buzzfeed found a total 73 cases against mothers, yet only four against fathers. Women commit 34 percent of serious or fatal cases of child abuse.

Japanese Wartime Medical Orderly on Army's Role in Maintaining "Comfort Women" System
Sunday, 26 October 2014 By David McNeill, The Asia-Pacific Journal | Interview and Video
David McNeill introduction, Matsumoto Masayoshi testimony (Japanese and English transcript and video of testimony), translation by Miguel Quintana.

For years, Abe Shinzo, Japan’s prime minister, has been playing with diplomatic fire over a sordid episode of wartime history that has been at the center of a storm of controversy involving Japan, China, Korea and other outposts of Japan’s empire: the herding of thousands of women across Asia into Japanese military brothels. His decision this year to order an investigation into a landmark government apology to the so-called “comfort women” might have helped end the controversy. Instead, it has further ignited it, which may indeed have been Abe’s intention – he has campaigned for nearly two decades to undermine the apology.

The 1993 Kono statement, compiled in consultation with South Korea by Japan’s then chief cabinet secretary Kono Yohei, acknowledged the army’s role in forcing the women into sexual slavery. Nationalists, championed by the Yomiuri, Japan’s most popular newspaper, deny coercion and insist the women voluntarily provided “comfort” to frontline troops. They have repeatedly demanded the withdrawal of the so-called Kono statement, with potentially explosive diplomatic consequences....http://truth-out.org/news/item/27054-japanese-wartime-medical-orderly-on-army-s-role-in-maintaining-comfort-women-system